Strong earthquakes shake southeast Cuba on the heels of hurricane, islandwide blackouts

Back-to-back earthquakes hit southeastern Cuba on Sunday, damaging houses, buildings and power lines as well as causing landslides, the goverment said.

The United States Geological Survey reported that a magnitude 5.9 earthquake occurred 21 miles off the municipality of Granma, at about 11 am. Shortly before noon, a larger, magnitude 6.8 tremor struck near the site of the first one.

On social media the island’s residents, officials and journalists posted photos of initial damage, including deep cracks running through homes and partially collapsed roofs. Photos of the streets of the city of Manzanillo, in the province of Granma, showed bricks and pieces of the facades of buildings crumbling onto the streets. In one home, a large crack running through a wall leaked sunlight into a living room. Meanwhile, in one school in the municipality of Pilón, the closest town to where the earthquakes struck, several windows fell off their frames, leaving classrooms exposed.

The quakes come as Cubans are reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Rafael, which hit the island as a Category 3 storm, and a nationwide blackout. Last week, Rafael destroyed hundreds of homes, flattened crops and damaged schools, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure in western Cuba. The devastation came on the heels of problems with the power grid that left the entire island in the dark.

The disasters in quick succession underscore how vulnerable Cuba is and raise questions about whether more Cubans will try to migrate to the United States and elsewhere amid the turmoil in the Caribbean country.

On a local Pilón Facebook group, residents talked about the earthquake and asked whether people had been able to get in touch with family members and loved ones.

“How much it hurts to see my country like this,” wrote one man named Andres Rivera.

The seismic activity also took place near Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city on the island. Authorities report the shocks could be felt throughout the region, including in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Haiti, and the U.S. Miami meteorologist James Van Fleet posted a video of a ceiling lamp swinging from side to side at an Edgewater condo.

Officials said that it’s likely there will be more aftershocks. Magnitude 4.2 and 4.6 earthquakes were also reported later in the afternoon.

Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel said that the provincial and national governments were in communication and shared reports of initial damages. He also urged people who lived in the affected areas to stay in open spaces.

“The first and most important thing is to save lives,” Diaz-Canel said.

Only the day before Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz shared updates about the storm recovery on the other side of the island, saying that the most challenging issues were restoring water and electricity. That same day, Diaz-Canel circulated photos of donated generators from the U.S. that would power hospitals throughout the island. The communications from the island’s top officials illustrate that the island and its government are still in the midst of navigating two other large-scale disasters.

“The progress is appreciable, but there is still much to do. We will not stop until we fully recover,” Diaz-Canel wrote.

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